Eliot and Beyond: a Survey of Nabakanta Barua's Poetry

Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL) A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal Vol.7.Issue 2. 2019 Impact Factor 6.8992 (ICI) http://www.rjelal.com; (Apr-Jun) Email:[email protected] ISSN:2395-2636 (P); 2321-3108(O)

RESEARCH ARTICLE

ELIOT AND BEYOND: A SURVEY OF NABAKANTA BARUA’S POETRY

KANAN SEBAK KHANDAYATRAY Associate Professor & Head, Department of English, Lakhimpur Girls’ College, North Lakhimpur, Assam https://doi.org/10.33329/rjelal.7219.112 ABSTRACT T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) is an epoch-making poet synonymous with modernism in poetry. One of the most widely read and translated poets of the twentieth century, Eliot has influenced poets the world over. Nabakanta Barua (1926-2002) is a post- Independence Indian poet writing in Assamese. Regarded as the most representative modernist poet of the Assamese literature, Barua has been deeply influenced by Eliot’s poetry and poetic theory. Without any blind imitation, Barua has assimilated the western influence to initiate a new era in Assamese poetry. The

KANAN SEBAK KHANDAYATRAY Eliot-brand of modernism has undergone a fascinating transformation in Barua’s poetry as the Assamese poet looks beyond Eliot in his perspective. The paper aims at tracking this transformation with a comparative analysis of a few poems of Eliot and Barua. Key Words: Barua, Eliot, Modernism, Assamese Poetry, Influence, City, Decadence, Weariness, Quest, Culture . . INTRODUCTION OBJECTIVE OF THE PAPER Nabakanta Barua (1926-2002) is one of the The influence of T.S. Eliot’s poetic theory greatest Indian modernist poets writing in and praxis is immense on Nabakanta Barua. But with Assamese. For his immense contribution to remarkable originality and difference in approach to Assamese literature, that includes 11 collections of the contemporary context, Barua’s poetry offers an poems, 5 novels, some essays and short stories for interesting scope for comparative analysis. The children, he was awarded The National Sahitya aim of this paper is to highlight the fascinating Academy Award in 1975. Some of his works have metamorphosis Eliot-brand of modernism been translated into different Indian languages . For undergoes in the poetry of Nabakanta Barua. his contribution to Literature and Education Barua METHODOLOGY has been conferred with Padma Bhushan, Kamal Kumari National Award , Assam Valley Literary The methodology adopted here will a Award and Assam Prakashan Parishad Award. comparative analysis of a few poems of T. S. Eliot Though Hem Barua and Ajit Barua are regarded as and Nabakanta Barua. the pioneers of modernist poetry in Assam, the most ELIOT AND POETIC INFLUENCE potent modernist voice is heard in the poetry of Nabakanta Barua. T.S. Eliot, with his sensitive multi-lingual scholarship, has contributed more than anyone else to the framework of ideas within which modern poetry is read and interpreted. F.R. Leavis rightly

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observes, “He (Eliot) has made a new start and commandership of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. established new bearings”. (Leavis 1982: 25) Eliot is There was an atmosphere of anxiety in the entire one of the most widely read and translated world region. Just before Independence , Assam, like poets of the previous century. With his technical Bengal, witnessed large scale communal violence as innovations, he has influenced generations of poets a by-product of partition. Post-Independence all over the world. Poetic influence should not be violence and moral degeneration contributed to an evaluated from the point of view of Harold Bloom, atmosphere of perplexity and chaos. In spite of who thinks, “Poetic influence………always proceeds difference between Eliot’s Europe and Barua’s by a misreading of the prior poet.” Bloom further Assam, there was a similarity between the two adds, “The history of fruitful poetic influence…….is a contexts from the point of view of technological history of distortion.” (Bloom 1973: 30) Bloom advancement , moral degeneration, weariness and thinks that a poet who is influenced, tends to an acute consciousness of physical and moral produce poetry which is in danger of being morbidity. Barua, who had his higher education in derivative of the poetry that influences him/her Calcutta, came in contact with the poetry of .Besides, the precursor poet infuses a feeling of Bengali masters like Rabindranath Tagore and anxiety in the mind of the influenced poet. This view Jinanananda Das. As a student and Professor of of Bloom does not hold good in all cases. Bloom English literature he had obvious proximity to the belittles poetic influence, which is often modernist poetry of Eliot ,the Imagist movement of instrumental in creating literature of the highest Pound and the contributions of the French order. Such influence often plays the role of a symbolists to the development of modern English catalyst initiating a creative fusion in the mind of the poetry. He found in Eliot a suitable idiom to express influenced poet. In this respect Eliot’s observation is the complex experience of his contemporary world. noteworthy. According to him, “ influence can Professor Madan Sharma rightly observes, “The fecundate.” (Eliot 1965 :18) This has precisely Assamese poets of the 1950s have been profoundly happened with Nabakanta Barua, the modernist influenced by Bengali poets like Rabindranath and trend-setter in the post-Independence Assamese Jibanananda Das and English poets like T.S. Eliot and poetry. With his firm cultural-root, Barua has Ezra Pound.” (Sharma 2002:120-121) rendered a fascinatingly healthy transformation to A SURVEY OF BARUA’S POETRY Modernism associated with the theory and praxis of Eliot. Karabi Deka Hazarika observes, “The victory Eliot’s influence is primarily seen in Barua’s march of the modern Assamese poetry starts with use of images. It is apparent that Barua’s painting the poetry of Nabakanta Barua.” (Deka Hazarika of modern life is based on his first hand experience. 2004: 115) Though Hem Barua is the first modernist But in finding a proper idiom to express his complex Assamese poet, Nabakanta Barua is acknowledged experience , he is profoundly influenced by Eliot’s as the most representative and most successful innovative imagery and theory of poetic art. He is modern Assamese poet. much impressed by Eliot’s views on the suggestive and evocative power of diction as well as the THE BACKGROUND OF INFLUENCE cerebral nature of the poetic process.Acknowledging Two factors broadly condition Eliot’s his indebtedness to Eliot Barua says, “I had mostly influence on Barua : the Assamese poet’s limited myself to surface borrowings and to bodily awareness of the morbidity and weariness of his lifting some of the imagery particularly of the early contemporary world and his propinquity to English Eliot.” (Barua 1992: 1) Here “bodily lifting” does not literature. During the fifth decade of the 20th mean that Barua randomly takes some images from century, Assam witnessed some rapid socio-political Eliot and uses those here and there in his poems. changes. During The Second World War the entire Here Barua refers to those Eliot-images , which are north-eastern region of India was under military apparent ‘objective correlatives’ of his feelings and occupation in the face of the Japanese invasion and emotions. Therefore, there is striking similarity in the advance of the Indian National Army under the the imagery of the two poets. For both the poets

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‘darkness’ is an image of death and ignorance, while who shudders with fear and futility to find death ‘light’ is an image of life and knowledge. In “The ‘the only merchandise’ on the ‘steel- vessel’ at Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, ‘restless nights’ harbour. With the dock at Khidirpur (a locality in evokes a picture of mental gloom. In Barua’s “The Calcutta) in a lifeless sleep , the sand looks filled Belt of the Spinning Wheel” a similar feeling is with ‘sailors’ bones’. The idea of death is absolute evoked by ‘the dark of my mind’. ‘Desert’ , ‘sand’ and the speaker does not see any prospect of ‘the and ‘cactus’ are some important images both in dead city’ being washed away by the life-giving Eliot and Barua. The following lines of Eliot evoke waters of The Ganges. At last his resentment and the picture of a spiritual desert : rejection of city life assumes the form of stoic bitterness. The picture of death is further painted in This is the dead land “O Forest O Metropolis”. Death is presented in the This is cactus land image of a crawling snake that passes under man’s (“The Hollow Men”, Selected Poems ,78) feet. The vagaries of modem city, with its Barua creates a similar atmosphere in “Continuous” melancholic monotony and lifelessness , is vividly with a set of strikingly similar images like ‘land of presented in “Shillong By Evening”. An acute feeling cactus thorns’ , ‘body of the dead earth’ and ‘land of of loneliness is expressed in “Song of an Afternoon dry bones’. The image of ‘cactus’ appears to be Road” . Here the speaker feels lonely even in the Barua’s direct borrowing from Eliot. Barua further midst of a vast crowd. This shows the emotional gap uses this image in an identical context: among people , who have grown incapable of any The cactus alone will flower effective communication . This may be the result of And at midnight, in the starry glow, man’s self-centered and isolated way of life. Urban Scatter its pollens to the sand-boa – pollution draws the attention of both Eliot and (“Once A River”, Selected Poems, 22) Barua. In Eliot ‘The river sweats/ Oil and tar’ and the speaker finds himself in the polluted atmosphere of ‘City’ is an important theme both in Eliot and Barua. ‘Trams and dusty trees’.(from The Waste Land) They have used ‘city’ both as an image and a Similarly in Barua , the speaker is keenly aware of a symbol. City is symbolic not only of modern living, situation filled with ‘only a consumptive pollution’. but also the mental landscape of modern man. In Deception and artificiality are very common among Eliot’s early poetry, city with all its ugliness and the city dwellers who live in their unreal world . spiritual decadence, is the symbol and epitome of They wear different dresses and different faces on the waste land the poet depicts. In Barua city is a different occasions. The monotony of this deliberate symbol of cruelty , sin and deception. In many artificial exercise finds expression in the poetry of poems like “O Forest O Metropolis”, “Harbour of the Eliot and Barua. The mechanical attitude of Eliot’s Ganges of Life”, “All Cities, All Men” and “Once A speaker is reflected in the following lines: River” Barua’s primary concern is to depict the decadence, lifelessness and loneliness associated There will be time, there will be time with modern city life. In “All Cities, All Men” Barua To prepare a face to meet the faces that presents a picture of mechanical sex that is very you meet; similar to the episode of the typist girl in Eliot’s The (“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, Waste Land. Their awareness of the contemporary Selected Poems, 12) world is reflected in repeated references to ‘city’ in In the last line of “Once A River” Barua’s speaker their poems. The lifeless look of the metropolis expresses a deeper sense of dejection : often evokes a sense of death in Barua. He has I am tired of fashioning fresh images! expressed his feeling of utter dejection towards the lifeless big city in the line, ‘Death-like-silence in the (Selected Poems,.23) ugliness of afternoon’ .(“Harbour of the Ganges of ‘River’ is an important image in the poetry Life”) The atmosphere of death intensifies in the of Barua. River, for him, is more a symbol than an observation of the dejected and helpless speaker,

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image. As the most important source of life-giving “The Story Of Coming Back” show the influence of water, river is integral to progress of human Tagore. Such poems express the poet’s neo- civilization. Eliot’s desert-like waste land thirsts for romantic feelings of nostalgia and wishful longing. In water. Without rain the rivers shrink. The picture of these poems Barua’s familiar images are the far-off, dryness and lifelessness finds a vivid depiction in limitless sky and the green earth. These lines from Eliot’s following lines: “Realization” ---‘crores of heavenly bodies at light years away/ Creator’s eternal presence’.---- depict Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves the poet’s neo-romantic imagination. These early Waited for rain, poems of Barua bear the mark of Tagore’s romantic (“The Waste Land”, Selected Poems, 66) tradition. But it is fascinating to follow Barua’s Barua also uses the image of sunken rivers to depict journey as a poet from this romantic world to the a dry and lifeless world. This finds illustration in the position of a trend-setting modernist poet with following lines: profound influence on poets of the younger Turning rivers into rivulets generation.

And brooks into beds of stone. Barua differs from Eliot in his perception of history. Eliot views history as a record of human (“Once A River” , Selected Poems, 21) ambition ,vanity and crime. History does not lead In “The Waste Land” the thunder utters three man to real knowledge, that lies in faith and divine Upanishadic words : ‘datta’, ‘dayadhvam’ and grace. On the other hand, history often misguides ‘damyata’; which respectively mean ‘give’ , by promoting confusion. The following lines depict ‘sympathize’ and ‘control’. These are suggested as a Eliot’s attitude to history: probable solution to the problems of ‘waste land’. History has many cunning passages, Barua comes out with a similar suggestion in the contrived corridors following lines: And issues, deceives with whispering What did the cloud say, ambitions, Guides us by vanities. Give, give more, give you all, (“Gerontion”, Selected Poems, 32) (“Silt”, Selected Poems, 17) Thus Eliot views history as a record of human Here, there is a direct reference to Eliot’s ‘black depravity. However, history is different from “the clouds’ that gather ‘over Himavant’. (from The historical sense”, which he considers “nearly Waste Land) Barua’s message finds a concrete indispensable” for a poet to attain maturity. (Eliot expression in the next lines : 1960: 49) By connecting the metaphysical essence of Plant trees by the road, open a high the past to the present degeneration, Eliot school…….. emphasizes the continued virility of the past. On Let our silt fertilize the banks of the Kolong. the other hand, Barua’s attitude to history is marked by ambivalence. In “When My Corpse Met ( “Silt”, Selected Poems, 17) The Buddha”, the speaker compares history with a Eliot’s poetry is remarkable for the spiritual solution ‘slimy stone’. The following lines exemplify the it offers. As exemplified in the above cited lines from poet’s peculiar attitude: “Silt”, Barua’s poetry also offers a solution that is He pondered alone for a while, and then pragmatic. Like a lonesome school boy bored with a THE DIFFERENCE picnic An important aspect of Barua’s difference Started scribbling his name from Eliot is his treatment of ‘romantic love’. On the slimy stone of history. Barua’s early poems like “A Poem Of Love” and (Selected Poems. 41)

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In “Arjuna: A Poem for the Third My Samskara (cultural ethos) was enough; I did not Generation”, the poet uses a mythical episode from search for any religious faith.” (Barua 1992: 2) The Mahabharata. After the great battle, the Barua’s observation of men as ‘sons of nectar’ in “O speaker Arjuna is concerned about Uttara’s unborn Forest O Metropolis” does not reflect his religious child and thinks that the unborn child should not be faith; rather it shows the poet’s consciousness of taught their history. Addressing hermit Shukadeva cultural values.. That apart, the near-misanthropic he says: bitterness reflected in Eliot’s line –I had not thought death had undone so many – (from The WasteLand); O Shuka, is no where reflected in Barua’s poetry. Do not teach him our history. (“Arjuna: A Poem for the Third Like Eliot, Barua also provides a solution; Generation”. Selected Poems, 34) but his solution is not religious. It is secular and humanistic and lacks the didactic intensity of Eliot’s After the bloodbath in the great battle, poetry. In “Valmiki ’84” the clear message is there is little inspiration for the coming generation. humanism. Barua feels a new epic – Manavayana -- So Arjuna does not want his future generation to should be written to uphold human values. As The learn their history, which is full of deceptions and Odyssey of the human kind, Manavayana must sing killings. While Eliot’s view of history is fixed, Barua the glory of human endeavor in agriculture and remains ambivalent in his observation. industry. In “The First Code of Life” Barua gives the In the matter of religious faith Barua differs message of self-purification. In the last stanza of the from Eliot, who is seen as a thoroughly religious poem he forwards a positive suggestion: poet. Eliot’s poetry is marked by a spiritual quest Ye my people, the incarnations of the Great that runs parallel to the poet’s constant search for Ashoka, form. In search of solution his protagonists With your tears of repentance undertake inter- cultural and inter-religious Have your hands washed off journeys. In “Choruses from ‘The Rock’” the The stains of your brother’s blood. protagonist speaks like a religious preacher: Purify yourselves. Not with the spoilt We build the meaning: incarnations A church for all But with the stable unity of (Selected Poems, 111) Thought, Love and Sweat. In his masterpiece Four Quartets Eliot arrives at the Ye Ashoka the Terrible, transform yourself solution to his spiritual quest as well as his search To Ashoka the Just. for a perfect poetic form. Helen Gardner observes, (“The First Code of Life”. Tr. Rituraj Kalita) “……it (Four Quartets) contains more fully than any Barua feels that modern man has to of his earlier works the poetic solution of his overcome the darkness of disbelief by avoiding peculiar problems as a poet,” (Gardner 1972: 2) ‘spoilt incarnations’, who often preach hatred in the On the other hand, Barua is a secular poet, name of religion. Emphasis is laid on unity of who does not preach any religious philisophy and ‘Thought, Love and Sweat’. By mentioning ‘sweat’, remains noncommittal towards matters of Barua stresses the need of hard work. He believes in conventionally accepted faith. But he remains firmly transformation in people’s heart. He admonishes rooted in his cultural ethos. Besides, there is a the modern man to transform himself from ‘Ashoka difference in both the poets’ perception of their the Terrible’ to ‘Ashoka the Just’. contemporary world. Pointing out this difference, CONCLUSION Barua makes a significant observation. According to Nabakanta Barua has not blindly imitated him, “At least to me he (Eliot) seemed to live in a the western literary greats like T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound decayed world searching for an escape route in the and the French Symbolists. As all great poets do, he European and even in Indian lore. I lack that search.

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has assimilated the western influence and has 12. Sharma, Madan. 2002. “Axamiya Kobitar created something really new and different in the Dhara”, Adhunik Axamiya Xahityar post-Independence Assamese literature. Barua Parichay. (Tr. “Trends in Assamese Poetry” remains an original poet of great stature with An Introduction to Modern Assamese individual brilliance. His poetry showcases the Literature) Ed. Dr. Lila Gogoi. Dibrugarh: fascinating transformation the Eliot-brand of Banalata. modernism undergoes in the Assamese poetry. Bimal Mazumdar rightly observes, “ Nabakanta Barua’s contribution to the modernization of diction and style of the Assamese poetry has been universally acknowledged…. It will not be improper to say that he has created a new era in the history of Assamese poetry.” (Mazumdar 2008: 11) Barua has influenced an entire generation of younger poets after him. This speaks volumes of the dominant role he has played in the post-Independence Assamese poetry.

WORKS CITED

1. Barua, Nabakanta. 1990. Selected Poems. Guwahati: Ventura Publications. 2. ______.1992. Eliotiana: Testament of a Poet”. Eliot in Assamese Literature. Ed. Pona Mahanta. Guwahati:Purbanchal Prakash. 3. ______.“The First Code of Life”. Kavitayan. Tr. Rituraj Kalita. file:///C:/Users/Owner?Desktop/navakanta .html (Accessed on 07 July, 2014) 4. Bloom, Harold. 1973.Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. New York: OUP. 5. Deka Hazarika, Karabi. 2004. Axomia Kabi aru Kabita.(Tr. Assamese Poet And Poetry) Guwahati: Banalata. 6. Eliot, T.S.1961. Selected Poems. London: Faber & Faber Ltd. 7. ______.1965. To Criticise the Critic. London: Faber & Faber 8. ______.1960. “Tradition and Individual Talent”,The Sacred Wood. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. 9. Gardner, Helen. 1972. The Art of T.S. Eliot. London: Faber & Faber. 10. Leavis, F.R. 1982. New Bearings in English Poetry. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd. 11. Mazumdar, Bimal. 2008. Axomia Kabitar Bisar.(Tr. An Evaluation of Assamese Poetry)Nalbari: Journal Emporium.

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